Thanksgiving Dinner
by NeverDreamsOfMe
Summary: Mrs. Lovett is having a bit of trouble getting Thanksgiving dinner ready... she's never done this before and she wants it to be special for her and Mr. Todd. Oneshot. Rated T for mild language and some gross imagery. Happy Thanksgiving!


Disclaimer: I do not own Sweeney Todd.

Hey guys! =D Sorry I've been away for so long. I've been making a shit ton of videos for Youtube (3 editing studios! I must be getting better =D). But last night I kinda got some editors' block so today I woke up with an uncontrollable urge to write, lulz. I thought I'd write you guys something for Thanksgiving. I'd been kicking this idea around in my head for a while and now seemed like the perfect time to bust it out xD My family is coming to our house tomorrow for dinner so I won't be able to upload it then. So... happy Thanksgiving Eve! xD Enjoy.

...

The body landed on the chopping block with a thud. Mrs. Lovett stepped back for a moment to catch her breath. _God, he was heavy. _Shadows from the firelight in the cellar fell softly on her heaving chest as the air dragged in and out of her body in gasps. She wiped a fine film of sweat and copper curls out of her eyes with the back of her gloved hand. It then darted back to her side, where it landed on her cocked hip.

_How the hell am I supposed to butcher this thing?_

She slowly circled the body like a lioness would her prey. Mrs. Lovetts' problem was her prey was already dead. Luckily she had a lion – Mr. Todd, she thought with a flutter of her heart - to take care of that duty. But she had to provide for her pride: the whole of London. To feed the masses, she had to cut this body up, grind it into unrecognizable bits, and bake it into pies. She had no clue where to start, which was starting to make her feel like a very bad lioness indeed.

"You must have some idea were to begin," she muttered half to herself, half to the body. It didn't answer, and neither did inspiration.

Mrs. Lovett sighed. Maybe she would figure out her first cut, maybe not, but one thing was for sure: this kill could not be consumed with its' clothes on. First she lifted its' head and untied the bloodstained bib the barber had fastened before its' end. "You wouldn't believe how many of these we go through," she muttered to the inanimate eyes. It answered with a crunch of skull against the block as Mrs. Lovett let its' head fall. She tossed the bib aside to be thrown in the laundry as soon as possible.

On Mrs. Lovett went: unbuttoning waistcoats and pants, untying shoes and neckties, peeling off dress shirts and socks. Her charge had since gone cold and was difficult to work with. She found herself more than once rolling it over, twisting limbs in ways they could no longer go, and hearing the subsequent pops and snaps as they broke. In the end, she had a naked, more or less still whole, slab of meat but still no clue how to make it edible.

The pie-maker was now becoming quite flustered. She'd had no experience butchering her own meat; that's what butchers were for, weren't they? But it wasn't like she could waltz into any butcher shop and strike up a conversation, slipping in a casual, "Oh, by the way, would you happen to know how to carve up a human being?" Not without being shipped off to jail or worse – an insane asylum. She shuddered. No, she was better off figuring this out on her own.

But that didn't make her any closer to solving the problem. Mrs. Lovett scowled at the body as if it held the information she needed but was withholding it from her. _I ought to rip open your skin and – _

Skin! That was it! First she had to _skin_ the creature! She chucked at herself for being so daft and fetched a knife.

Skinning turned out to be hard work. She started with the chest, making an incision from the cut throat to the belly button. Shoulder to wrist, hip to ankle, around the crown of the head went her knife. She dug her fingernails into the cuts and pulled. The sound of skin reluctantly ripping from flesh made the woman feel queasy, but she pushed it down and kept on. Eventually she had a mountain of skin next to the pile of clothes and blood as well as sweat on her forehead where she'd wiped her face.

Mrs. Lovett knew what to do next. She took her butcher knife and started to separate meat from bone. Her charge was colder and more resistant than before. The cleaver whistled through the air and came down on the red meat with more and more force. Sometimes she sheared off a hunk of bone, which she carefully picked out before continuing. After a long time, a heap of bones sat next to the skin and clothes. The pie-maker fanned herself, sweating so much that she might have just run a marathon.

"You're a lot more trouble than you look," she remarked to the quite diminished kill on her butcher block. "I should have ground you up skin, bones, and all. But that would never do, would it? No. Well, no matter. I'll dress you up and have you ready in no time."

With that, she transferred the meat from the block to the grinder. One, two, three times she ran it through. One, two, three times she kneaded the dough for the pie crusts. Into the crusts the meat and gravy went; one, two, three generous spoonfuls. With another flash of her knife, one, two, three vents were slit into the shape of a flower at the center of the crust topping the nearly-finished pies. Into the roaring oven they were placed, one, two, three rows of baking heaven – or hell, in the case of her charge.

Mrs. Lovett surveyed her little cellar kingdom. Everything was cleaned up and in order, perfect and pristine. A little smile curved her lips up. Her glove drew across her forehead again, bestowing a streak of flour upon it as she gave a happy and satisfied little sigh. She turned and climbed up the stairs to take a quick bath – the turkey still had to be trussed for Thanksgiving dinner.

...

Yeah, har har, I'm so not funny. xD Thanks for reading, reviews are greatly appreciated! Eat lots of turkey and no humans tomorrow! =D


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